Have you ever ignored the washing labels in your clothes and turned your white wash pink, shrunk your favourite jumper or melted your blouse because the iron was too hot? Avoid laundry disasters with our infographic guide to the most common washing symbols. Follow our guide on laundry day and keep your clothes looking their best for longer.

Washing symbols

Before throwing everything into the washing machine, first it's a good idea to go through your laundry pile and sort them by washing instruction symbols - grouping similar garments together. For example, synthetics should go together as should anything with a hand washing symbol. To make sure you know what these washing symbols mean, check out the washing instruction labels below.

Tip: Lots of washing machines have special programmes designed to take care of specific materials. Our Washing machine buying guide can help.

\

Tumble drying symbols

Don't want your clothes to shrink? Then be careful which you put into the tumble dryer. The main thing you have to think about is what temperature each fabric type can take. Generally speaking, gentler fibres need to be dried at a low temperature or left out of the tumble dryer entirely. Just look for the square with the circle in the middle. This is the tumble dryer symbol. The number of dots in the middle will tell you what temperature you can dry these at.

Air drying symbols

If you haven't got a tumble dryer, most clothes are fine to air dry. But some will lose their shape unless they're dried flat on a flat surface. You can find out how to air dry your clothes by looking for the square with the lines. Here are the air drying symbols to look out for:

Ironing symbols

It's tempting to put your iron on the hottest setting and use steam because sometimes we think that's the only way to get the creases out of our clothes. But it's really easy to damage materials like silk when the iron is too hot. Group all your clothes for ironing together and separate them into piles doing the clothes that need the coolest setting first. That way, you won't accidentally press a woolly jumper with a really hot iron. Just look for the ironing symbol on each piece of clothing, taking note of how many dots are inside the iron.

Bleach symbols

Just because it's white, you think it can be bleached? Think again. Yes, you want to get your clothes nice and white again - but the type of material and the type of bleach you use could lead to a bleaching disaster. So be sure to look for the triangle bleaching symbol and compare it to our picture below.

Need more help?

For more advice on all things laundry, chat to our ShopLive tech experts and they'll help you clean up.